


this rhythm tears a hole

by free_pirate



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Implied Relationships, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-04-22
Updated: 2011-04-22
Packaged: 2017-10-18 12:41:51
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,051
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/188990
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/free_pirate/pseuds/free_pirate
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Turns out, saying yes is the easy part. What’s harder, what matters more, is time and how it’s used.</p>
            </blockquote>





	this rhythm tears a hole

**Author's Note:**

> Companion piece to cocoaphonic's 'it's the soundtrack for the end'. Won't make much sense unless you read that first. Oh, and, uh. Spoilers for 5.04.

Dean hasn't seen Sam in a long, long time.

He doesn't know how long, exactly; time has no meaning here except when they don't have much of it left, and the frequency of that creates a constant state of being. He just knows it's been years since he's even talked to his brother, longer than that since he's seen him.

But he tried.

He tried calling, tried emailing and tracking and nothing got through. Sam didn't want to be found, probably took to heart all the bullshit Dean spouted about how they shouldn't try and find each other. And that's exactly what it was, bullshit. Just proves how out-of-sync they were (are) that Sam couldn't tell just from his tone.

~*~

The resistance he's mustered up can't do much. They can't travel or pursue the evil that's taken hold of the world. They sit and wait, clutch their weapons, and it always finds them soon enough.

It's the waiting part that kills him.

~*~

Sometimes Dean thinks that Castiel's constant presence is the only thing that keeps him from saying yes.

~*~

Days pass uniformly, push-pull of anxiety and the whisper of voices, whisper-brush as people move and mechanical click as they check their guns. Dean isn't among them even if he thinks he should be. He can't sit still long enough to wait properly; maybe he's had too many years of making his own decisions and not having to rely on other things to make them for him.

Castiel watches him pace, unwavering gaze just this side of judgmental, and sometimes Dean thinks he'll say yes just to escape it.

~*~

Nothing has changed for days, weeks, months. It's the same oppressive darkness they've always dealt with. Time hasn’t made it worse.

It's this more than anything that drives Dean to ask. He knows he shouldn't, knows he doesn't want to know the answer, but he's half-mad with waiting and the devil, the demons, Hell-on-Earth would be a nice change. They need to get the fuck on with it if they're going to do it, already.

"Do you know where Sam is?"

Castiel almost flinches, but it's a fleeting thing. Dean's beginning to get used to his expressions, even if they're more human than angel. "I can't find him. You know I can't."

Dean drops his eyes. His voice is husky, ill-used and it feels like it doesn't belong to him. "I know."

~*~

It takes its toll on everyone, eventually. Numbers shrink and the enemy is no less of a threat or more of a threat that it’s ever been. It’s there, lurking just outside, but it seems content to starve them out before it attacks.

~*~

“How long has it been?” he asks, whispers so the others won’t overhear. He might have lost count, but Castiel probably hasn’t.

“Two years and three months.” Dean doesn’t have to clarify what he means.

“We should find Sam.”

“We can’t.”

“We can try. If Lucifer needs him to engage us, he obviously hasn’t said yes--”

Castiel turns that cold, expressionless gaze on Dean. He fidgets, averts his eyes, and pretends not to hear the answer.

“We can’t risk it.”

~*~

He leaves it alone for a while, but for the first time since he can remember, not thinking about the problem doesn’t make it go away.

~*~

It takes Dean weeks to realize it, now that he’s actually paying attention.

He misses Sam.

It hurts, rubs against a raw, open place inside. He’d been so dead-set on trying to forget, trying to deal with everything directly in front of him, that he’d forgotten the reason he does this in the first place.

When he calls, he isn’t surprised to get the disconnect tone.

~*~

December sets in, and even though they’ve faced it before, there’s something new in the air; it’s a thick, electrical charge that’s like static across his skin when he steps outside. He doesn’t need to ask, this time: this time, Castiel tells him.

“Lucifer is on the move.”

Dean’s voice cracks. “When?”

“Last week. We have to act fast.” The bastard doesn’t even have the decency, the humanity to look sorry. This is different than all the other times he’s lost Sam, all the other times when he’s been slipping away right before his eyes. Then, there was a way back.

This is permanent.

No one stops him as he walks off, and if they hear him shouting to the heavens, they don’t say anything afterwards.

~*~

There’s this ache. It isn’t like the familiar pangs of hunger, of loss, of pain. It’s constant, sharp, breaks apart in his hands and fits itself back together when he’s not looking. Sweeps up on him, silent and unseen, and stops him dead in his tracks.

It’s unidentifiable, foreign. Like being stabbed in the back, it’s irreversible.

Turns out, saying yes is the easy part. What’s harder, what matters more, is time and how it’s used.

And they don’t have much of it left.

~*~

When Dean does see his brother again, it isn’t Sam that he’s seeing. He knows this, but it doesn’t stop it from knocking the wind out of him.

It’s been a long, long time. So long he can’t remember the exact number of days, weeks, months, years.

It comes down to this, then.

“You want to know how I got to him.” Lucifer says, quirks one side of Sam’s mouth in a gesture that, even if he hasn’t seen him for so long, strikes Dean as uncharacteristic. It’s not even a question.

“No,” Dean says, keeps his hands from shaking. It’s a lie.

“I used you,” he says as he steps closer, voice barely above a whisper. “No one else had quite the same effect. Jessica couldn’t convince him, Mommy and Daddy couldn’t convince him, but you…” Lucifer trails off, smiles slow and syrupy. “He couldn’t tell you no.”

He’s impossibly close, and Dean couldn’t get the Colt up between them if he wanted to. “He made me promise,” Lucifer continues, even as the sharp edge of a knife slips out from his sleeve, even as he slides it between Dean’s ribs, “to tell you how much he wished you’d have taken him back.”

The sinking feeling that takes up residence in Dean’s chest has nothing to do with the knife that’s slowly, inexorably gutting him.


End file.
